August 27, 2011

Somehow this birther nut has avoided detection by Wiley Publishing, probably because they make it a pain in the ass for anyone to contact them. If they do find him he can scarcely plead ignorance, as the YouTube version” of this video even carries a disclaimer stating that FOR DUMMIES® is a registered trademark of Wiley Publishing, Inc. I’m sure they’ll find it eventually, though. Meanwhile, go check out that moronic video while you still can.

The factual misstatements in the video are too numerous to explain in detail, so I’ll focus on the most obvious one. Minor v. Happesett was decided in 1875. Chester Arthur, whose constitutional eligibility to the Presidency is identical to Obama’s (both were born on U.S. soil to a U.S. mother and a non-U.S. father, and both had idiot opponents claiming they were born abroad) was elected in 1880. If anyone believed in 1875 that Minor means anything close to what this lying crapweasel says it means, Arthur would never have been a viable candidate. Of course Dean knows this, but doesn’t care. note that there are only two comments posted to his entry, both by people who think he craps ice cream. My own comment, #13, is in moderation:

There is nothing remotely “educational” about this video. It grossly misstates the holding of Minor v. Happersett, flat out lies about Wong not saying anything about “natural-born” (a phrase it actually employs liberally), ignores Article III of the Constitution entirely and generally makes a hash of the entire issue.

Of course you birthers don’t care about facts, but if you did, here is all you really would need to know. If the 1875 decision of Minor v. Happersett really had held that only a person born to two parents is a natural born citizen eligible for the Presidency, Chester Arthur would not have been a viable candidate a mere five years later. It’s not because there weren’t any Chester Arthur birthers out there; there were plenty of them. It’s certainly not because anyone mistakenly believed Arthur’s father was a citizen at the time of his birth; it was well known he was not. No, it’s because nobody, and by that I mean literally nobody, believed that the then-recent decision of Minor v. Happersett meant anything close to what this hack claims it means.

Oh wait, did I say my moderated comment was #13? Why yes, I did. How do you get from only two older, displayed comments to mine being #13? Um….

UPDATE: The lying crapweasel saw this post right away, and responded less than an hour after it was posted. Yet, for some odd reason, three days have gone by and still only the two fawning comments out of 13+ are up. Seems like both this week’s idiot and last week’s know at some level that they are idiots and can’t defend their indefensible positions against anyone who challenges them. At least last week’s idiot, Kevin Lehman, admits that’s what he’s doing.

6 Responses to “Today’s Idiot: Dean Haskins”

I can demonstrate that your assertions about Wiley Publishing are totally devoid of factual information , for you state that you’re “sure they’ll find it eventually,” which is quite indicative of those of your ilk (stating fallacy as truth).

From Wiley Publishing: we request “the following attribution language at the end of any postings that may refer to the FOR DUMMIES® brand. Attribution Language: FOR DUMMIES® is a registered trademark of Wiley Publishing, Inc.”

If you will notice, their attribution language is in the video details, and in an annotation at the point in the video where their trademark graphically appears.

So, you were completely wrong about that one . . . now onto Chester Arthur. Even though you’ve shown that you write without any knowledge of the truth, why did you conveniently leave out the fact that Arthur directed that all of his personal documentation be burned if there wasn’t something he wanted to obfuscate? As you so astutely pointed out, his “constitutional eligibility to the Presidency is identical to Obama’s,” as Obama is just as ineligible to hold the office as Arthur was.

Re Dummies, it’s all well and good to post the requested language when referring to them, but that’s no defense at all to misusing their trademark. IOW, the fact that I might refer to them in a post means they request (but can’t require) that I mention their trademark. It doesn’t give me permission to palm off their name and publish my own stuff as X For Dummies. Then again, the trademark thing is between you and Wiley. I have no dog in that fight.

As to Arthur, one of the chief weasel tactics is to answer a question with a question. Not going to let you get away with that. Answer my question first. Burnings aside, everyone knew at the time of Arthur’s candidacy that father was a non-citizen at the time of his birth. If anyone back then thought that disqualified him as a natural born citizen, why didn’t the Arthur-birthers just say so? That would have been much easier and much more straightforward than to waste their time arguing over where he was born.